FROM THE "DESPERATELY GROPING FOR A CASE FOR WAR" FRONT

Only out of sheer masochism did I turn on "The O'Reilly Factor" for a few minutes today.

About ten minutes in, he had on a fellow named Evan Kohlmann, and they talked about -- set your phasers to yawn -- a low, low-level member of Al Qaeda who may or may not have received medical treatment as he was passing through Iraq. If it is true, opines the spinmeister, then that would be a "smoking gun" for Colin Powell and the administration.

Riiiight.

This is grounds for war? What's more, THIS is grounds to show a significant connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda? That a guy got medical treatment!?!? I don't buy it. Bush tried to make the very same argument three months ago, at that big Iraq speech in Ohio, didn't work. It won't work now. Nice try, guys, but you can file this one next to the Prague meeting, which exists nowhere but within Bill Safire's mind.

(obvious postscript: If Iraq's guilt-by-association with Al Qaeda is that a low-level guy went to a hospital there, then what does that say about Saudi Arabia and Pakistan?)